Google has agreed to pay nearly $40 million to Washington state to settle a lawsuit alleging that

the company violated the state's privacy law by collecting 

and storing the location data of millions of users without their consent. 

The lawsuit, which was filed in 2020 by Attorney General Bob Ferguson, alleged that 

Google had collected the location data of users of its Android operating system and 

its Google Maps app even when users had turned off location sharing. 

Under the terms of the settlement, Google will pay $39.7 million to the state. 

Google is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products. 

It is one of the Big Five companies in the American information technology industry 

with Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft being the others.